Biography

Teresa A. Bennett is Assistant Vice Chancellor for the IUPUI Office of Community Engagement. Her primary responsibilities are to develop and maintain strategic corporate and community relationships, advance IUPUI Anchor Institution initiatives, and serves as campus liaison to business associations and governmental research partners.

Teresa leads programs that meet IUPUI’s goals for strategic economic and workforce development including the operations of SOURCE River West Entrepreneurship Center on the Near West side. She also works with Indiana employers to build partnerships and programs that connect the university’s intellectual capital to the pressing demands for talent and professional growth.

Before joining the IUPUI Office of Community Engagement in 2014, Teresa founded and directed the IUPUI Solution Center from 2004 – 2014. The Solution Center served as an expert resource to strengthen and expand IUPUI’s engagement mission. As Executive Director, Teresa developed and led the IUPUI Community Venture Fund, a matching grant program that awarded nearly $3 million in matching grants to organizations and small businesses to seed and expand sustainable community partnerships.

Through her leadership the Solution Center attracted over $7 million in gifts, grants, and matching funds in support of university-community engagement. Teresa and her expert staff provided guidance to community partners from business, industry, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies to foster and support thousands of research initiative, product development and business assistance projects, internships, and other community-serving engagements.

Prior positions include Director of Strategic Relations for the Purdue University, West Lafayette, Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS); Director of Recruitment and Industry Relations for the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology, IUPUI; and Communication Director and Senior Editor for the Center for Urban Policy and the Environment (now Public Policy Institute), School of Public and Environmental Affairs, IUPUI.

Teresa also is an Associate Faculty member in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI where she has taught graduate and undergraduate capstone courses since 2008, resulting in over 150 socially relevant community-based research projects for Indiana nonprofits, businesses, and government agencies.

She earned a Master's of Public Affairs, majoring in Policy Analysis, from Indiana University, and a Bachelor's of Arts in Communication with emphasis on Public Relations and Issue Management from Purdue University. She has completed doctoral courses in Philanthropic Studies.

Teresa serves on numerous community boards and committees including the UWCI Capital Projects Fund Committee, MCCOY, Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site, and the Indiana Small Business Development Center.